Netherlands vs Germany Prediction & Betting Tips - Handball World Championship

Prediction published on 20/01/2023, 04:51  by Steve Ashfield | Modified on 20/01/2023 at 05:52 in Handball World Championship Predictions

The Netherlands have a must-win match against Germany on Saturday. This is a Group III match in the 2023 Men's World Handball Championships main round. Going into this match, Germany are in top of the group with six points, ahead of Norway in second (also on six points) and two clear of the Netherlands in third. The top two qualify for the quarter finals and a win for the Dutch side here will take them ahead of the Germans on head-to-head results. The first match of this main round group saw the Netherlands beat Qatar 32-30. They had to come from behind to get that win, having trailed by four goals at the break. This is their first time in these championship finals since 1961 and on that occasion they failed to win a match and were eliminated in the preliminary round. Last year showed the progress that they have been making. They got to the main round of the European Championships and have repeated that feat in this tournament. With Norway fully expected to beat Qatar, the Dutch team need to get a win here before taking on Serbia in their final fixture.

Germany will want to wrap qualification up in this match as their final group game is against Norway. They haven't reached the last eight in these championships since 2015. However, they did get to that stage in the Summer Olympics tournament held in 2021 but lost in the main round of the European Championships held last year. The preliminary round saw the Germans top Group E with three wins against Serbia, Qatar and Algeria. They only beat Serbia by a single goal and Qatar by four goals. Their unbeaten run in these championships continued with an impressive 39-19 win over Argentina with 24 of those goals coming in the first half. They have won five of their last six matches with the only loss being in a friendly against Iceland and that was only by one goal. A narrow win over the Netherlands is the prediction here.